23 June. Clear. Made a new "hat trick" astrophotography shutter for the 8" telescope. My 48-year-old shutter that I have used with my Edmund 3" reflector and all my telescopes since then, isn't quite large enough to fully cover the 8" aperture. For the new one, I used a thin piece of stiff cardboard, to which I glued a piece of black construction paper. I then cut it to a circular 10" diameter. After sunset, I did some more "preventive" bug spraying in the hope of removing the Kissing Bugs from near the observatory. This was some more serious stuff than the "generic" bug spray I had used previously. It was a concentrate and used a pump sprayer to apply it.

I had to wear a mask, googles, and gloves while handling the concentrate and spraying. I'll find out on the next observing session whether it was effective. Did no observing that night.

24 June. Cloudy skies. Monsoon moisture has now begun arriving in Southern Arizona. Took the photo at the top of page showing a short rainbow above the observatory about 2 hours after sunrise. There were wind gusts to 33 MPH during the day but no storms.

provide lots of useful information for potential buyers of these high-end telescopes and some good tips for new and experienced users. I learned a couple of very useful tips which I have applied to my 8" LX200-ACF. The next chapters:

5. Essential Software for Basic Operations

6. Software Adjustment of Periodic Error and Polar Alignment

7. Autoguiding

8. Used Advanced Software

go into considerable detail on using software, especially MaxIm (a Windows application), to improve the telescope setup and do imaging. The next chapter:

9. Adaptive Optics

is a discussion of the current state-of-the-art of this technology for use on the LX200/LX400 telescopes.

The chapter:

10. A Guide to Weather Satellites

will be helpful to those users who want to receive and monitor weather satellite images directly (not via a weather forecasting web site). But its inclusion seems out-of-place in this book.

The chapter:

11. Some LX200 and LX400 Projects

gives a handful of suggested projects and provides some examples of possible results.

My overall impression of the book is that it is aimed at those users who want to do high-end serious imaging with their telescope. That is a noble goal for all of us, and the book describes in detail the hardware and software required. In fact, the book is almost a user manual on getting the most from the MaxIm software. If you use MaxIm (which I don't, since it is limited to Windows only), then the extensive discussion of the program will definitively be very valuable. But for many LX200 users, the extent to which the book concentrates on this detracts from its usefulness on how to select and use (for visual and non-serious imaging purposes) these high-end telescopes. There is very little technical information on the mechanical and electronic aspects of the telescope mounts. From the book's title, I expected more information on those topics. The writing style is sometimes a little awkward and the author jumps around a bit, mixing topics with items previously discussed or yet to be discussed. This doesn’t make the book hard to read, in fact, it is almost “conversational” in nature.

Every book author has to decide what topics to cover and where to concentrate their efforts. I had to make the same decisions when writing my book "Using the Meade ETX" (also in the Springer "Practical Astronomer Series"). For some ETX owners, my decisions worked perfectly and for some I totally failed. Mr. Harris has made his decisions and I suspect he will experience the same reactions. For the way I currently use my LX200-ACF, the first four chapters were the most useful and the extensive discussion of MaxIm software was not useful at all. If you are wanting a LX200/LX400 book like the "A User's Guide to the Meade LXD55 and LXD75 Telescopes" by Martin Peston (also in the Springer "Practical Astronomy Series"), this book is not it. But if you want to do serious high-end imaging, then this book will be a very handy guide to accomplishing the best images possible with your telescope.